Reminiscences of Sister Nivedita - 1
Katha Vivekananda Kendra
By Novalis in the 'Tribune,' Lahore .
Out of the silence of months I emerge to pay a tribute of memory to one who has just crossed the borderland and passed on to the beyond from whence comes neither whisper nor message to the land of the living. Margaret Noble —Sister Nivedita—is dead and her work has been accomplished. When it comes to be put together that work may not amount to much because the time vouchsafed unto her was so short and she had perhaps no premonition of the angel-wings that had been beating about her summoning her silently to where her Master had gone before her.
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The qualities that she brought to bear on the work she did, deserve to be remembered for seldom did a truer or more generous nature throw in its lot with a cause so hopeless as that of India and with so much enthusiasm and hopefulness. One Anglo-Indian paper has called her love for India ' a craze ' and that is how other people will call it, for how many of them can fathom the depth of her nature or the passion that burned in her as a holy flame ? To the shallow critic and the casual observer she was only a crank —gifted beyond doubt but only a crank.
It is not for me however to attempt an appreciation of her work in this place. Mine as I have said is a tribute of memory, recalling her as I knew her in life. I saw her many times and talked with her for hours at a stretch and I shall here relate only incidents of actual happening, things and words as they may recur to the memory.
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मुक्तसंग्ङोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वित:।
सिद्धयसिद्धयोर्निर्विकार: कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते ॥१८.२६॥
Freed from attachment, non-egoistic, endowed with courage and enthusiasm and unperturbed by success or failure, the worker is known as a pure (Sattvika) one. Four outstanding and essential qualities of a worker. - Bhagwad Gita : XVIII-26